


Before I Lose You Too

by ChromeEdwardian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Cuddling, Hair Brushing, M/M, Post-All That Remains, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14982623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeEdwardian/pseuds/ChromeEdwardian
Summary: The loss of Leandra only compounds all the stress and grief that Garrett Hawke's been feeling these past several months. For once, Anders is able to help Hawke get to sleep.





	Before I Lose You Too

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Handers Reverse Big Bang, hosted by handers-time on Tumblr. [Art by bmac413](http://bmac413.tumblr.com/post/175065463075/hawke-finds-it-hard-to-sleep-most-nights-after-the)

The broadsheet fell limp in Garrett Hawke’s hands. His attention was pulled outside to the courtyard where trees stood strangled amidst the flagstones. The pop of the logs in the library fire reminded him he was supposed to be reading Varric’s latest, and he looked at the broadsheet again. This one even had illustrations by a Carta woman Varric knew. His eyes tiredly skimmed the same line again and again, taking in none of it. His eyes drifted to the window again, sore from lack of sleep. The moonlight that fell over the branches reminded him of that terrible veil that had cascaded down Mother’s back as she staggered toward him. He couldn’t look away. The nights had been long since she died. Every night he was visited by visions of her cloudy eyes, her cracked lips, the unhealed junction where her neck met some other woman’s chest. The image overlaid all the other stress and anguish the last year had brought upon him. 

She used to be part of that stress, trying to set him up with one nobleman or the other, trying to pull her family back to its former status. She and Garrett didn’t talk much toward the end, except to update each other on what was generally going on in their lives. Garrett knew about Quentin, technically. Mother had welcomed Anders into the family with open arms. But Mother knew nothing of the daily turmoil Garrett’s mind was going through--the guilt, the blood, the cheating and skulking, the conscious he couldn’t shake. Now that she was gone, she would never know the burden he had to bear. 

Garrett hears Anders coming up from the cellar. Whether from working at the clinic or with the mage underground, Garrett doesn’t know. He doesn’t pry. Anders is his own man and doesn’t need his lover fussing after him. His footsteps shake Garrett’s thoughts loose, and he turns back to the broadsheet. He manages to read a sentence or two. He wonders who this character is supposed to represent in their circle of friends. 

“Evening, Hawke,” Anders says, entering the library. He looks like he ran here. His chest is rising and falling quicker than usual, his cheeks and forehead pink. Garrett looks over his shoulder at his partner and struggles to bring a small smile to his lips. Anders ignores his expression and walks over to be near him. He kisses Garrett on the top of his head. “I’m going to go upstairs and write. Do you need anything?”

“No. Thank you.”

Anders gazes at Garrett for a moment longer.

Garrett reaches out to stroke the top of Anders’s hand. “Go. Your manifesto needs you.”

After a minute, Anders leaves, but not without looking over his shoulder back at him. Garrett looks into the fire before him.

The warmth of the fire flickers off his ragged cheek. Sometimes he thinks he can see Mother’s face in the flame, but it doesn’t bring him comfort yet. It only reminds him of her pyre, and the pyres that took away the rest of his family. Except for Carver, who was left on the ground behind some stones, as though the Hawkes were Avvar. It reminds him of everything he’s lost and how there’s so much left to lose. 

Garrett looks up at the shelves where his mother’s books still sit. He drops Varric’s broadsheet to the ground and stands up. He needs to walk. He exits the library and heads outside. Upstairs, he can see light coming from his bedroom where Anders is working.

The moonlight feels less like a veil now that he stands in it. It’s only light after all. Meandering around the courtyard, he looks at the flowers Mother used to tend, and that Merrill would sometimes help with. It would be a shame to let them die, but maybe they ought to. Either keep them and the memory of his mother’s caring nature alive, or let them die and let Mother’s ghost move on. How much should he hold on before Mother begins haunting the place? 

Garrett goes back inside to seek out some mint tea, to soothe the burning in his stomach. The servants have gone to sleep, as he really should, so he lights a candle on the table and goes to boil some water. Once prepared, he takes the tea back into the library. He’s forgotten all about the broadsheet and now paces around the room, blowing the steam away from his cup. When he drinks, it doesn’t soothe his stomach or his nerves. He sets the cup down, rougher than needed. He regards the cup for a moment. How good it would feel to dash it against the wall. It’s an impulse, to be sure, but...Garrett picks up the cup and hurls it, and with it his frustration. The shatter of porcelain is a prettier sound than he would have expected. Different from the glass bottles Fenris sometimes broke. 

It doesn’t help. It doesn’t take his mind off things. It’s only a physical manifestation of his emotions. For it to do him any good, he would have to destroy all the teacups in the house, and then everything else. And then what?

Anders must have heard the sound, because Garrett hears him coming downstairs. As he enters the library, Anders looks at the mess, at the fragrant tea spreading across the floor. The face Anders makes at him makes Garrett want to break down crying, but he won’t. He’s not the crying type.

“Come to bed, love,” Anders says, holding his hand out. 

“I can’t,” Garrett breathes, so Anders comes forward and takes his hand, pulling him away from the library and up the stairs. He closes his eyes in pain as they pass by his mother’s room, sealed up like the necropoleis of Nevarra. So very rarely did he go to his room anymore. His mother’s room aside, he was often out at all hours of the night solving Kirkwall’s eternal problems.

“Anders,” he insists. “You’re done working at the clinic. You don’t need to mother me.” Anders's grip grows stronger around Garrett’s hand but doesn’t say anything back. He only leads Garrett into their room, where the fire is dying down, light flaring in the hearth.

Anders lets go and sits down on the bed. His face is hard. “Garrett, I can’t imagine how much you’re hurting, but I’m here for you.”

“It’s nothing but insomnia. You should understand that.”

“I can sleep. I choose not to. Let me help you the way you help me.”

“Then I also choose--”

“You’re helping no one like this” Anders says, and for a minute Garrett can hear frustration in Anders’s voice. “Come here.”

The fire in Anders’s eyes only serves to remind Garrett why he loves him so much--Anders and his incapability to do anything halfway. Unrestrained, he would run himself into the ground with how much he cared about things. It would be hopeless to get Anders to think about anything else now. Garrett steps toward him and lets Anders undress him. 

“What are you doing?” Garrett asks. Anders quickly kisses his mouth, crawls off the bed, and sits down on the carpet, facing the hearth. He spreads his legs and looks up at Garrett, stripped down to his underclothes. 

Anders looks away, “Sit here.” So Garrett does, instantly relaxing as he sits down between Anders’s knees and leans back against his chest. The touch is welcome, something warm and solid supporting him. Anders sighs and curls himself around Garrett. His hands run up and down Garrett’s arms until they cross over his chest in an embrace.

The room smells like wood smoke and the sachets Orana leaves in corners of his room. Right now, it’s Garrett’s favorite place as he sits against his partner. His duties, his loss, all have been driven from his mind. 

Anders presses his cheek against Garrett’s hair. “I hate seeing you like this.”

Garrett leans harder into him. “I know.” He knows he could put Anders’s mind at ease if he just asked for help once in a while. But that’s not how Garrett works. The world needs him stronger than this.

Anders starts running his fingers through Garrett’s hair. It reminds him of Mother, but for once it’s a nice thing. “Don’t you go losing your nerve on me, love,” Anders mumbles. “We’ve got to be resolute. The city won’t defeat us.”

“Won’t it?” Garrett mutters. The fingers on his scalp are hypnotic, and his head begins to lean toward Anders’s shoulder. He likes having Anders surrounding him like this--someone holding him for once. That he feels like he used to when he was a child and hadn’t lost anyone, isn’t lost on him. Anders begins to rock slightly from side to side. Garrett kisses Anders’s wrist and suspends himself in the warm silence.

His mind roils with bitterness and fear most of the time these days. It’s hard to tell whether that will ever go away, or whether he’ll be hounded forever by the need to make the world a better place, even as his own world crumbles. Anders is solid and loving behind him, but how long until Anders is pulled from him?

Anders had told him once about how mages in the Circle were discouraged from developing feelings for one another, lest they be cruelly separated. Garrett thinks that’s the wrong way of going about it, but he knows it will hurt him all the same, someday. 

Plenty of time to dwell on that later, he imagines Anders saying. Anders’s breath is warm and soft against his ear, their chests rise and fall in tandem, except for the content sigh Garrett lets out. His mind begins to drift, Anders’s fingers are still in his hair. His eyes are closed. He falls asleep.


End file.
